BAGHDAD, 12 August 2003 — Eight Iraqi high court judges put out to pasture 10 years ago by Saddam Hussein’s regime over their failure to approve a controversial death sentence were reinstated yesterday.
“We decided to annul the 1993 decision retiring them,” Justice Ministry official Medhat Mahmud said in a speech to Iraqi officials and US advisers to the ministry. “They are therefore to be immediately reinstated as decided by the legal review committee and paid back their lost salaries,” Mahmud said.
In 1992, nine judges refused to uphold a death sentence on a man accused of murdering a relative of Saddam’s youngest son, Qusay. They were subsequently retired in 1993. Eight of them are in Iraq while the ninth is overseas. Meanwhile, Iraq’s provisional governing council will bring to trial the United States’ 55 most-wanted members of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, the council president Ibraham Al-Jafari announced yesterday.
According to Al-Jafari, the rules of the proceedings will be worked out by a special committee, and the cases will be broadcast on Iraqi television. So far, 39 of the 55 are being held in custody by the US military.
